Kennedy cult continued
Taki
ToNew York the Metropolitan Museum on Fifth Avenue, natch, for the Costume Institute's annual ball at $3,500 smackers per person. My hostess, the great designer Carolina Herrera, has taken a table for ten, which if my arithmetic is correct, makes it a mere bagatelle of 35;000 greenbacks.
Mind you, it's all worth it. Never have I seen so many pretty girls in such a grand setting. The Met is a hell of a place for a party, with the Temple of Dandur set up as a disco, the great hall for cocktails, and the Petrie room for dining. (Or is it the other way round? I got too drunk too early to find out for sure.) The mood was 1960 White House, as it was the opening of Jacqueline Kennedy, the White House Years. Now before I tell you all about the party, a few remarks about a museum exhibiting Jackie's empty gowns.
In my opinion, the function of a museum is not only to exhibit great art, but also to make us a little smarter rather than a little stupider and to elevate us rather than debase us. The Saatchi show, wherever it may be, is crass, self-abasing, coarse and leaves one feeling degraded, whereas the Vermeer exhibition is sublime, high-minded, inspiring and leaves one a better person for having attended. The Camelot myth, which is repeated in pictures selected from the JFK library and museum for the Met exhibition, is a breathless and fawning effort to buck up the Kennedy image. Nothing more, nothing less.
If one is a Kennedy cultist, and there are as many of those as there are fools in the world, it's like entering paradise. There's a display of campaign buttons, engraved invitations and videos of JFK jabbing his finger and asking for the umpteenth time what one can do for one's country, along with the famous Avedon picture of Jackie in black and white which is plastered across the wall.
Which brings me to the point I wish to make. Should the Met be playing politics? The flotilla of Kennedys attending said it all, but under the guise of Jackie, yet again. Caroline Kennedy, who gave a graceful speech, is a private person who shuns publicity and the limelight. When she was first approached by the Met she consulted her friend Carolina Herrera and asked the latter to help her. (Herrera dressed Jackie and now dresses Caroline.) Hamish Bowles, an Englishman, was chosen as curator and the result has been the greatest publicity and advertisement for the Kennedys' newer generation since the film PT 109.
This is hardly the first time Jackie has come to the rescue of the crude and gangster-like Kennedy clan. The martyred JFK had great charisma and charm, but without Jackie I doubt he would have won in 1960. (He also might be alive today.) Bobby was ruthless and a phoney. Teddy has ruined lives and reputations, starting with Mary-Jo Kopechne and ending with Judge Robert Bork. He feels entitled to take other peoples' hard-earned dough and distribute it to those who dislike work but like the Kennedys. With the exception of Jackie's children, the ensuing generation of Kennedys rivals those of the Gambino and Gotti clans, and I fervently pray the last two won't sue me for pointing this out.
But I digress. Yes, the party was great, and Jackie was a great clothes horse, and Carolina Herrera is the greatest and most feminine of designers, (and certainly a most generous hostess) but I do not agree that a museum should be a platform for the Kennedy image. Are the Kennedys part of American history? Of course they are. But so are Generals MacArthur and Patton, and I'll bet you my last devalued drachma that Hamish Bowles is not about to mount an exhibition for brave men who devoted themselves to military duty. It all has to do with winning the culture wars, and opportunists like the Kennedys are the ones that have.
But finally to the party. And how do you like them apples? Meg Ryan, Renee Zellweger, Andie MacDowell in the company of the poor little Greek boy? Not bad, even if I say so myself. Actually the three beauties came over to salute Reinaldo Herrera, Carolina's hubby, and I managed to get my two cents in, as they say. The best by far, however, was the least glamorous, Angelica Huston, daughter of the great John, accompanied by Graydon Carter, soon to be knighted — he's a Canadian — for services rendered to British broken-down hacks and sundry. Miss A has a sense of humour and she flirts, something all elegant ladies once upon a time used to do. This is the good news. The bad is that Hillary Clinton also attended, and a member of the Speccie family actually broke bread with her ghastliness.
Previous page
